I have just tried 2018 SP4.0 on one of our 4k monitors in the office, and whilst it is still more functional than any version before. There are still various icons that do not scale correctly. However, if you don't mind the odd icon not being perfectly in scale, and everything being quite small in general due to the resolution then I'd say it seems usable.

If you set the resolution on the 4k screen back to 2560 x 1440 or another resolution that Solidworks recommends, it all scales as expected. However, you may need to restart SolidWorks for the changes in regards to scaling to all update correctly.

SOLIDWORKS behaves like a "System scale factor" application. This means that when SOLIDWORKS starts, it scales according to the DPI setting of your primary display, which is determined when you sign into Windows. However, Windows doesn't 'stretch' SOLIDWORKS to fit displays that have a different DPI.

This is why, when you start SOLIDWORKS on a 1,920 x 1,080 display and then drag it to a 4K display, it does not scale dynamically. In this situation, you would have to make the 4K display your primary monitor, sign out of Windows, then sign into Windows again for SOLIDWORKS to scale to fit the new primary monitor (the 4K display) when it starts.

DPI scaling is important and complex, so it's one of the areas that we work on in each release.

You also have to remember that when you change the screen resolution you need to make sure that you select a resolution that maintains your screens ratio. For example if you have a 16:9 display you need to make it at 1920x1080 for standard resolution or make it 3840x2160 for 4K. If you go to 1920x1200 you will get distortion in your text and other things. You have to use a resolution that maintains the number of pixels your screen is made with.

Earlier this year I bought a HP Zbook G4 with a 4k display (15 inch). This was principally to use as a 'site' machine and not as a principal workstation. At that time SW2018 SP4 was installed and there was really one stand out issue for me at that time which made it difficult to use in that points were incredibly small and hard to pick. I have read that SW do not recommend 4k use in smaller screens but I think the 4k interface work is definitely making this possible. I have not used in extensively however and time will tell. :-)

However with SW 2019 the points are scaled much more effectively and in a proportion that non 4k screens would typically give. I find even quite usable now even at 15". The odd icon or screen is not always spot on but I find it 2019 quote usable now on that quite small 4k screen. Fine lines on edges can be a little tricky but I would still say it is quite usable.

Everything is very crisp and for complimentary layout work in AutoCAD the extra fine detail at 4k is very useful. (We make conveyors so our layouts are sometimes up to 1 kilometre across)

I'm glad to hear that you are finding 2019 to be working well for you on a high DPI (4K, 15") screen. Points and Edges in the graphics area were one of the last system-wide fixes and I'm glad to hear its working well. We did have to make some choices about line width scaling, so it is interesting to hear your feedback on that still being a little tricky. That is something we will keep an eye on and tweak if necessary.

As you come across "the odd icon or screen that is not always spot on," we would love it if you snapped a screenshot and posted it to the forum. We are actively hunting for these little inconsistencies and as Bret Hekking said we devote some development time to bug fixing and scaling quality each release.

I have been working with SW 2019 now on a 24" 4k screen for a few days and as on the laptop the only routine modelling task that is more difficult in than a non 4k display is picking edges. Its OK if the edge is 'in space' because clicking slightly to one side of the line in the non model area will select the line but it can be quite difficult when there are two model faces on either side of the line. It typically might take 3-4 clicks and a fair bit of zooming before I get the line and not one of the faces. Practice will help but it seems more difficult where points now are just as easy to pick as non 4k and they used to be very difficult to pick until this version.

I just wanted to add that note about the odd icon not being right was 'probably' not correct. At the time I was making those prior comments I had been working on site and occasionally had to remote desktop to my office workstation on the 4k laptop to do a quick couple of SW tasks. So I was looking at SW most of the time on the laptop and I may have been reporting on the office view via remote desktop across which correct scaling is a very big ask. I have been continuing to use SW on the 4k 15" laptop and have not really noticed any issues in regard to interface usability.

i would not like to work on a 14" with such a high resolution. And i would not follow the recommendation, to set the resolution to a lower value. You will only get the quality, if you use the native resolution of your screen.

With this said, i saved a lot of money, when i bought my 15" Dell Precision - with "only" the 1920 resolution. I'm really happy with it and don't have to hassle around with scaling, settings and odd icons…

Just did a quick test of SolidWorks 2018-19 Student Edition on a Thinkpad X1E with Nvidia 1050Ti Max-Q GPU. The laptop is connected to a 49" 4K TV. I followed a tutorial to build a box. I have two questions:

1. When I ran SW on the 15" screen, the letters looked very small. How do I make them bigger?

2. After I made a box, it looks like the box is distorted (one end longer then the other). How come?

Actually, is it better and faster to run SW on a laptop with P1000 or P2000 rather than on a Nvidia 1050 Ti MaxQ?

On my laptop, I set the system scaling to 250%. When the laptop is not connected to an external 4K TV, SW's GUI scales properly. When I set the system scaling from 250% to 175%, everything became smaller. When I set it to 200%, letters became easier to read. Note that whenever i change the system scaling, I have to quit SW and relaunch it again for the change to take effect. I am fine with it. From quick and simple testing, it seems that scaling on a standalone 4K laptop is working fine. I may need to spend more time to test to find any scaling issue.

However, when I connected the laptop to a 4K display and system scaling is 250%, I could read the letters (not to big and not too small) comfortably in the GUI on an external 49" 4K display but when I dragged the window to my laptop screen, all the letters became tiny. Is SW supposed to do this? Can SW automatically scales the letters when the user moves the main SW window from a large external 4K display to a small LCD 4K screen of the laptop?

Bret Hekking describes how SOLIDWORKS works as a system scaling application in his reply from August 29. That is likely what you are experiencing. We are actively investigating the best way to handle this problem when you have mixed displays (like a 4K 15" at 250% laptop and a 1920 50" secondary display at 100%).

BTW, do you recommend getting a Thinkpad X1 Extreme (Nvidia 1050ti MaxQ) or a P1 (Quadro P1000/P2000)? If the CPU were the same, which would give a better performance and generate less heat when running SW?

We don't typically make recommendations, but as most forum users will tell you professional-level cards like the Quadro are the only ones that have drivers certified for use with SOLIDWORKS. This will mean even more with SOLIDWORKS 2019 and the new graphics pipeline improvements as those rely on the driver optimizations you see with the Quadro cards.